Month: February 2019

Here is Part 1 of the conference I gave in January at Conservatoire Toulon Provence Méditéranée, the largest music conservatory (in terms of number of students) in all of France. The lecture had a packed house! This is the first part of the lecture, which is about 18 minutes in length.

It’s in French, but don’t worry, even if you only took high school French, you will be able to understand it because it is ME speaking French with my “charming” American accent! Here is the description:

Concert at LAXART is cancelled

due to USA work visa issues. The concert (see below) has been rescheduled for March. An announcement on this page will be posted with the new date.

For February’s post I’ll share some photos from a recent concert with the percussionist Will Guthrie that we did at the Opera House in Toulon.

Then I’ll tell you about an upcoming duo performance with the French composer Ghédalia Tarzatès that will be presented in Los Angeles at the Laxart Gallery on Friday 15 February as part of the Frieze Music events.

Rhys Chatham & Will Guthrie Toulon Opera 26 Jan 2019

On 26 January 2019, Conservatoire Toulon Provence Méditerranée (TMP) presented a new work of mine at the Opera de Toulon (pictured just above) entitled Talisman, which is a duo for the percussionist Will Guthrieand myself at the Opéra de Toulon. I played transverse flutes (alto and C), electric guitar and trumpet, with Will on various percussion instruments.

Here are some lovely photos of the performance, taken by Olivier Pastor:

Coming up this month (February 2019):

Rhys Chatham and Ghédalia Tarzartes at Laxart.

I am preparing for a duo concert in LA with Ghedalia Tazartes. It’s on Friday, 15 February at LAXART Gallery, at 8:30pm. The show is free, so first come first served! The event is part of Frieze Music.

Here is the blurb from the site in case you don’t have time to visit it:

This gig features two legendary underground figures each of whom, in his own way, is a shaman of the avant-garde.

If Tazartès’ earliest recordings, Diasporas (1979) and Total Eclipse of the Sun (1984) brought him into the orbit of musique concrete, he would define its outer most reaches. Composing with recorded material was the means to highly idiosyncratic ends as the mainstay of this material was tracks of him chanting. Over the years, Tazartès has emerged as a vocalist whose chants share an affinity with any and all cultures for whom it is sacred expression.

A denizen of Paris since 1987, multi-instrumentalist and composer Rhys Chatham needs no introduction. His activities, from playing with La Monte Young’s Theater of Eternal Music and Tony Conrad’s Dream Syndicate to serving as The Kitchen’s first music director would define New York’s lower east side post-Minimal experimental music scene. This concert is Tazartès and Chatham’s’ second meeting after their stunning debut at Les Jardins de Simones.